That’s the message Brooklyn Bridge Park development officials gave on Wednesday night when they admitted that there were several “mistakes” in planning the kiddy playground on Pier 1 — the one that featured the large metalic orbs that got so hot in the sun that kids got burned.

“There are always mistakes, even with an agency as experienced as ours,” Parks Department spokesman Joshua Laird told Community Board 6. “Developers should be held accountable for their response to problems. I think they responded quickly.”

Laird was referring to workers, who fanned out to install movable tents above the domes to keep them cool. But that stopgap measure, and the subsequent admission of error, comes weeks after a young girl busted her face on one of the steel domes in the small, $800,000 playground inside Pier 1 at the foot of Old Fulton Street.

The injuries started a whirlwind of controversy for the Empire State Development Corporation, which had turned the corner on the long-delayed park development project with the March opening of the first segment of the $350-million strip of green from DUMBO to Atlantic Avenue.

At the meeting, some community members criticized the kiddy park and its surrounding green space on Pier 1 for being too small and, yes, boring for their offspring. But officials said they’re just getting started — and that the new playground opening on Pier 6 near the foot of Atlantic Avenue later this spring will be fantastic.

“The one on Pier 1 is not our major playground — it’s meant for very small children,” said Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corporation President Regina Myer. “The one on Pier 6 will be expansive, with swings, slides, a sandbox, and even a water play area.”

The new playground promises more excitement. The huge sandbox comes with a kid-sized train and plastic animals to ride. There will be two steel — yes, steel again — slides, one of which careens through rocks at the pier’s entrance. There are also some modern, colorful jungle-gym contraptions for the expert climbers.

Reader Feedback

Wonderful that the taxpayers spent $18,000,000.00 on this architecture firm so they could learn on the job and spend even more of our money on do overs.

How about a refund from their outrageous design fees to cover this incompetence?

April 23, 2010, 8:34 am

Heights Dad from Brooklyn Heights says:

The Pier 1 playground is "meant for very small children?" Are they going to put larger cooking domes on Pier 6 to cook the bigger kids?

This is what happens when you put the idiots from the ESDC in charge of creating a park. No condos, no ESDC, no "development corporations." Give us a real park!

April 23, 2010, 9:09 am

nick from boerum hill says:

you parents are the biggest complainers, even if the park were perfect you would still find a way to complain about it, be grateful for what you have and enjoy it.

April 23, 2010, 11:07 am

nikola from DUMBO says:

you can't enjoy it when you are afraid that your kid is going to be injured.

April 23, 2010, 11:21 am

jerry from brighton beach says:

BP Marty Markowitz (together with our new Finance Chair Councilman Domenic Recchia) also did a fantastic job with getting the perfect firm to design the Lighting Spectacular of the Parachute Jump in Coney Island.That cost the taxpayers (me & you) over $ 10 million dollars with the renovations. They have to do the lighting over again on this project costing another $1-2 million dollars.They spend our money like drunken sailors.Now Marty wants to build the " Marty Markowitz " Amphitheater in Asser Levy / Seaside Park. This I can guarantee you will be another boondoggle blunder of a venue.You go Marty !Keep up the Great Work !

April 23, 2010, 12:31 pm

Pacholo from Red Hook says:

This park is landscape for Brooklyn One residents. Otherwise it is junk!

April 23, 2010, 5:29 pm

Henry from Fort greene says:

This is totally moronic. Not one person who was involved in designing the playground have kids? It was so obvious to me the week that the playground open and it was a cool week. I told my wife that these spheres will be boiling hot in the sun. And I am not an architect or engineer. Heck, I am not even a very handy person but I knew it the moment I touched one of them with my 3 years old.

I don't have high hope on other playgrounds they are planning as these people lack common sense.

April 23, 2010, 8:37 pm

Henry from Fort greene says:

@Nick from boerum hill, you understand burning skin right? If it's up to you, human race would extinct. Thanks for not having any kid.

April 23, 2010, 8:40 pm

Cheerie from Brooklyn Heights says:

Well if they don't do me right, they'll just have to do me over and over again. I am never one to complain, it's not a race to get there first - it's all about the motion of the ocean (harbor?) (water under my bridge?)Plant your grass on my field, come into my playground.It will be fun, but keep your dogs leashed!

April 25, 2010, 12:37 pm

Joe from Mars says:

The amazing thing about this is that the powers that be are being super responsive to people's concerns -- many of which seem overblown -- and yet, this just opens the door to more immature criticism. Just for the record I am a parent, I do like the playground, and I don't live on Brooklyn One.

April 26, 2010, 3:34 pm

Paul A. from Bay Ridge/Ft. hamilton says:

BRILLIANT!! Another design failure with no forethought as to what would happen when these things heat up under a summer sun.Just build it without thinking what will happen in the future. A complete disreguard for the safety of children.When I saw the photo of that little girl after she had fallen I got sick.Who the hell designed these things to be used in a playground??

April 27, 2010, 12:55 pm

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